perjantai 16. toukokuuta 2008

Day 5 - May 16th: When Finland freezes over...

Today was cold. So very cold. People were so cold at KKN and the Thing that a campfire was made over at the lunch site so that we could warm ourselves up. However it was not cold over at the Pits. Apparently Sam worships Apollo, the Greek god of the sun, and cooked up a sacrifice good enough to move all of the sun's rays to trench T308, much to the chagrin of the rest of us.

I'm going to be all crazy today and flip around the order of edutainment provision for you guys. I'll start with a cool find that the survey team found today. They found a large site of 8 depressions (potential structures) that run along the 55 meter shore line. The shore was at this level at around 5000 years BP, so we can relatively safely assume that these sites will date to sometime around this period, as this has been the case with most of the sites excavated throughout this area, they follow the temporal extension of the shore line. The road cuts through one of the depressions and is thus absolutely covered with quartz flakes, but the rest of the depressions are completely intact. This cluster of dwellings will hopefully be excavated in one of the coming years of this project.

Now that I've thrown you guys off with the zany new format...I'll switch back! That's how I roll.

Today in trench T108 at KKN we found more ceramics, and....you guessed it, more quartz flakes. This brings us up to something like 260 finds in this trench, so far most of it being quartz flakes. We started bringing down the east side of the trench more today as that is where the midden is most probably located, this could be why we found more ceramics today and that they concentrate in the east side of the trench. All finds were mapped using the Total Station again today. I'm including a picture of trench T108 today to show you what the excavation technique we are using looks like. It's called technical layering, which means that you keep the excavation going level at all points regardless of soil type. This method allows us to see different patterns of enriched soil and was particularly helpful in the location of the hearth.

Moving on to the day's business over in trench T208. As was posted yesterday, the trench at the Thing this year shows evidence of being a palimpsest cooking pit. No new exciting finds today. However you may find the excavation technique itself quite exciting...well at least I do! I'm including a picture just like I have for trench T108. The technique being used is called stratigraphic layering. This means that you excavate each layer of differing soil types separately. This makes for an uneven trench but helps us to see specific soil morphologies possibly caused by archaeological events. This technique can take a great deal more time than technical layering. Take a look at the picture and you will see what I mean, it looks like an ant farm...FOR GIANT ANTS (hail our new ant overlords...?).

Speaking of ants! Guess who found some sleeping ants in their trench? The team over at the Pits. Before excavation could continue the ants were removed and placed in the back dirt pile so they could wake up when they were good and ready. Otherwise excavation proceeded as usual. The large charcoal feature was excavated showing further evidence for a possible double stratigraphy, meaning two different uses of the site, yay palimpsest! The alternate theory is that we have been digging through a tree and are now coming to the end of it, or some combination of the two (trees frequently root in old hearths for their ash content, disturbing the hearth's contents and creating a dark, rotted root layer nearly indistinguishable from charcoal).

That was a relatively long bit o' text for this post, so now I will cease with the boring and get on to some dazzling photographs.

Feast your eyes on this fine example of technical layering at KKN; also notice the hearth pattern of enriched soil and charcoal at the closest end in this picture, which happens to be the west end.

Now take a gander at some sweet stratigraphic layering at the Thing.

Everyone freezing at trench T108.

Warming up at lunch by the campfire.

Madness sets in at the Thing.

The double stratigraphy at trench T308 mentioned in the post.

Everyone looking at the lovely work being done over at the Pits.

That's the end of week one, it went by pretty fast! Posts will continue on Monday.

2 kommenttia:

Hey, is there any way you could scan / put up a map with the locations of the various sites and features you have been talking about, particularly these new finds the survey team has made? Don't worry about it if it would be a huge pain, though; I'm mostly just trying to get my bearings, spatially speaking, with all the information you've been giving us.